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Catherine Opie
Born in 1961 in Sandusky, USA / Lives in Los Angeles, USA

Jens Hoffmann (JH): All of your photographs that we have chosen to include in the Istanbul Biennial are portraits. Can you talk about the role of portraiture in your work?

Catherine Opie (CO): My subjects look at you. In relation to traditional portraiture, I am a formalist. I take portraits of people against solidcolored backgrounds as a gesture toward painting. I also use landscapes and domestic settings as backdrops for my portraits, and they become representative of an American landscape. I have always been interested in how people create community. In high school I started taking portraits of the queer community that I was a part of. It was my identity and at that time it felt very important to document my friends, the rise of HIV, and our relationship to that critical moment. I try to represent the whole person in my portrait, as an individual and also as part of a community, with both strengths and weaknesses. Football players’ identities are constructed through their bodies. They are in high school and baby-faced, yet they deal with the pressure to take steroids and to push themselves to the fullest. My queer portraits are also about vulnerabilityThey had a lot to do with HIV and people disappearing in front of me.

JH: How do you choose your subjects?

CO: There needs to be a personal connection and intrigue. I arrived at the surfer photographs intuitively. I used to be a lifeguard, and it felt natural to work with people who share an affinity for the ocean. I just went to the beach with my camera. I photographed all kinds of people, not just the idealized surfer with the blond hair. In regards to the football players, my nephews all play football in Louisiana. I went down there for a while and started taking portraits. I had to get permission from the high school and then I eventually created one of the most involved works I have ever done. I went back every fall. There were 45 people in a team, 11 teams, and it became a three-year project. I am interested in the way early American genre painting could create a history of a place. What does it mean culturally to be a surfer or football player? Footballers are a part of a team, and these teams are very popular in this country. The surfing photographs are related to landscape and specifically California. The surfers are a subculture made up of individuals who are dependent on the waves of the Pacific Ocean for their ride.

JH: Can you talk about the photographs of children?

CO: I focused on children because I became a mother and was fascinated. Sexualized portraits of children bother me, and I reacted against this. I worked with kids, just as kids. I did not project onto them, but just looked at who they are as people. They almost come across as adults.